Saw akonnick's Trace Storm deck the other day taking advantage of all the Data and Destiny cards and it gave me an idea: build a trace heavy NBN deck that relies on zero tags, only the taxation of trace and penalties when said trace can't be payed.
Agenda Setup: Decided to keep it fairly basic here using things that can be advanced within a turn or two. The only toss up I had was throwing in a couple Improved Tracers to make the ICE traces more dangerous but felt that I would want an agenda that's a 3/2 more often than not.
Upgrades: Was debating for awhile between Rutherford Grid and SanSan, ended up leaning toward the grid since it costs 0 to rez, and combo'd with Ash (plus all the traces in the ice protecting it) can make a server hard to get into. Ash with a base trace strength of 6, then with re-occurring credits to boost for free.
Operations:
Surveillance Sweep was a card I immediately wanted to run the second I pulled it out of the pack. It creates a more crippling mind game with the runner especially in a trace heavy deck as this. Then with how much money this deck puts out it makes the runner force a decision of "Do I drop all my credits to beat the trace, or let it hit?" So long as you're in control of economy then Surveillance forces the runner to forfeit tempo by draining your money very slowly (in which case you retort by choosing only the important traces to fire in your favor).
ICE:
Most of the ICE in the deck will rely on Trace Subroutines that tax the runner, the idea isn't to necessarily stop the runner (that's Ash's job) but to drastically slow their tempo to a point where they can't afford to run as aggressively.
I was originally thinking about running TMI over Bastion, but after doing the math I realized I would rather pay the extra 2 credits than have to worry about the card not rezzing (and it's out of D4vid range). Wraparound was also out of the question because I need ICE in this deck to be constantly taxing not become dead-weight once they find a Corroder.
Archangel is another surprisingly fun card in the deck as it can remove key cards from the board in a surprise R&D/HQ run I usually hold one like a Snare as it becomes fun to bounce a Kati with 9 credits on it before they get a chance to bank them.
Viper, Caduceus, Flare, and Troll are in place to do the same thing: bring tempo in my favor if the sub hits. Whether it be losing a click from Troll or Viper, or even giving me credits if a Caduceus fires. The best part is that if they beat the trace that the credits are still being dropped somewhere off the board.
Anyway, thoughts? Because I gotta say I'm really liking this new way to play NBN and all the options in the new packs. so I would love some feedback on how to improve this list.